by Wayne Mee
Charley Little Dog lay sprawled on his back, his vacant eyes staring up at the early stars. Blood trickled from the hole in his forehead. A gun went off to their right, the loud report echoing off the mountains. All three crouched, weapons ready, peering into the fading light.
“Over there!”, Eddy yelled, pointing with the still smoking barrel of Nate’s 44-40. “They shot Charley and headed for the trees!”
“How many?”, Josh asked.
Eddy emerged from the growing dark. Bobby was leaning against him, blood pouring from the wound in his leg.
“A man and a woman!”, Eddy answered. “I got off a shot, but missed.”
Flame was already half way to the forest. Jessie was right behind her. Josh turned to Eddy.
“See to Bobby, then find Cobb. We’ll be back.”
Eddy nodded. As Josh hurried after Flame and his son, Bobby called after him. “You get him, Mr. Williams. Get him good!”
Josh was already at the trees.
Chapter 51: ‘EVER ONWARD’
High in the hills
Sequoia National Park
California, May 27th
“It hurts, Jocco!”
“Shut the fuck up!”, the man hissed.
“But I can’t stop the bleeding!”
Jocco leaned closer to the woman, his cruel mouth just inches from her own. “Then die, bitch, but keep your fucking mouth shut!”
Pam turned away, hatred and pain coursing through her. Since entering the forest they hadn’t stopped running. At first it hadn’t seemed too hard. They’d escaped death and now they were free. Then the pain had set in. She’d pulled Lonefeather’s knife out back at the lodge. It hadn’t bled much then, or hurt much either, but after stumbling around in the dark for twenty minutes her shoulder ached like hell. Now she was bleeding like a stuck pig.
“I got to rest.” Even to her own ears the words had a distant, far away quality. She found herself sitting on the ground, half propped against a tree. Blood still poured from the shoulder wound. Part of her realized that she was bleeding to death. The other part didn’t give a shit. All she wanted to do was close her eyes.
“Here, take these.” In Jocco’s outstretched palm were two red capsules. Slowly she reached for them, dropping one. Jocco cursed and, scooping up the wayward capsule, shoved it and a quantity of leaf mould into her mouth. Pam gagged once, then dry-swallowed the lot. As she tried not to retch, a plan was forming in Jocco’s mind. He knew that William’s would follow. Most men wouldn’t, but the good professor wasn’t like most men.
“You just rest there, Pam. I’ll see if I can find us some water.” Jocco’s voice had taken on that velvety smoothness that should have sent warning bells clanging in her head. Pam the Bitch, however, was too far gone to notice. What with the shock from her wound and the loss of so much blood she wasn’t thinking straight. The fact that the drugs were starting to kick in did little to help her cognitive faculties. Grinning like a cat full of cream, Jocco watched for her eyes to glaze. When they did he gave her his orders.
“Just sit still, Pam. Pretend to be sleeping. When you hear them coming keep quiet. Let them walk right up to you.” He placed her chrome-plated .38 in her open hand. “When they bend down to check you out, let them have it. I’ll cut loose from the side. Got that?”
Feeling like a boat adrift on a tranquil sea, Pam nodded. The pain had faded to a dull throb and the night had taken on a strange beauty. Moonbeams began to dance before her eyes.
“Sure, Baby,” she mumbled. “Let them walk right up then blast them.”
In the moonlight Jocco’s grin looked like a wolf’s snarl. “That’s my girl. I’ll be just off in the shadows.”
As Jocco stood, Pam grabbed his pant leg. Her voice had a little-girl-lost quality to it. “You won’t leave me, will you Jocco?”
The man who would be king patted her head like he would an obedient hound. “Now, would I do that to my best girl?”
Pam’s grip fell away, a contented smile on her pale face.
Jocco backed quietly into the shadows. Once there, he looked about for some place to set up his ambush. Half way up a hill a jumble of rocks offered the best cover. From there he could clearly see Pam stretched out in the moonlit glade. It was a bit further away than he liked, but the M-16 on full rock n’ roll would easily make up for the distance. Of course, Pam would also be hit, but then she was as good as dead already. Besides, this far away he’d have a good head start if anything went wrong. Finding a crevasse in the rocks, he laid his rifle down and lit a smoke, content to wait for his plan to unfold.
Josh felt uneasy. For one thing there was a full moon, its silver light filtering down through the trees made them all stand out like sore thumbs. For another the trail was just too damn easy to follow. Besides the blood scattered about, the quantity of which Josh didn’t think it humanly possible to loose and still be alive, they were making no effort to cover their tracks. Either they were running scared or they were laying a trap. Knowing Jocco as he did, Josh bet on the latter.
Jessie suddenly gripped his arm. “Look at that, Dad. Up ahead. Its Jocco’s girlfriend.”
There, in plain view in a small clearing, was a woman propped up against a lone pine. She was dressed in torn fatigues with a dark stain all down her left side. In contrast, the moonlight turned her long blonde hair almost white.
“Looks like she’s been hit,” Jessie continued. “Maybe Eddy didn’t miss after all.”
“Let’s make sure,” Flame said, raising her shotgun.
“No,” Josh whispered, gently easing the Defender’s short barrel to one side. “No sense letting Jocco know where we are.”
Flame grinned and drew Josh’s Tanto from his belt. The sharpened steel glittered in the moonlight. “You’re the boss, Lover, but I’ve got a score to settle with that bitch. If she’s not already dead, she soon will be.”
Josh gripped her wrist with one hand and gently retrieved his knife with the other. “Something’s wrong, Flame. I don’t like it.”
“You think its a trap?”, Jessie asked.
Josh glanced around. “Could be. Out there in the moonlight we’d be sitting ducks.”
“Want to scout around first, Dad?”
Josh smiled at his son. “It couldn’t hurt. You and Flame check out those rocks up there. I’ll work my way through the pines downslope. In ten minutes we meet at the far side of the clearing. That way we can come up behind her.”
Flame pulled her hand free. “Look, you two boys can play Daniel Boon if you want to. Me, I’m going to have a one-sided chat with that bitch right now!”
Josh frowned. He knew that when Flame got her back up there was no reasoning with her, yet he tried anyway.
“How about this?” she said after he’d had his say. “You two go off and I’ll cover you both from here. Once you reach your positions, you can cover me?”
Josh nodded reluctantly, knowing it was the best offer he was going to get. “But wait till you hear us both whistle before leaving these trees.”
“Sure thing, Lover,” she said. “Now get going. I have to take a leak.”
From his position high above in the rocks, Jocco saw the three of them at the far edge of the clearing. In the bright moonlight they looked like three pale ghosts. His hand reached for his M-16. Part of him wanted to off the bastards then and there, but another part, the part that had gotten him up the slippery ladder of success, told him to wait. ‘Too far off’, he reasoned. ‘Over a hundred yards at least. Best wait till they’re all right up to Pam.’ It displeased him greatly when the three split up, each one slipping into the shadows like a wraith.
“Shit!”, Jocco swore, then cursed again for speaking out loud. The forest around him had gone as silent as a grave and he knew that he was out of his element. The bustle of the city streets were his domain, while those good old boys down there were born and bred in an outhouse. Then he saw the boy's blond head moving towards him and a cruel smile twisted his features.
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br /> “Come on you little shit,” he whispered as a new idea burst upon him. If he could capture the kid he’d have a hostage to bargain with! “Uncle Jocco has a surprise for you.” Slithering back into a large crevasse in the rocks, he crouched down to wait. Soon the quiet scuffle of boots could be faintly heard coming up the slope.
Flame had quickly answered the call of nature and now sat scanning the small clearing. The woman propped up against the tree hadn’t moved an inch in the last five minutes. Flame didn’t think she’d ever move again.
“Men,” she muttered to herself. “Always acting like tough little boys. Any fool can see the bitch is dead.” She hefted the riot gun and a new thought popped into her mind. Even if she was dead it could still be a trap! Jocco was a user of people. The fact that his girlfriend had bit the big one wouldn’t stop him from still using her. He could be out there now waiting for them to step into his scope and here she sat with a bloody scattergun that was only good up close. She needed a long distance weapon if she was going to be any help to Josh and Jessie! The dead bitch by the tree might just have one. Squinting into the moonlight glade, she couldn’t be sure. That ‘might’ be an M-16 beside the body --- then again, it might be a bloody stick.
“Only one way to find out, girl,” she muttered. Flicking the safety off the stubby little shotgun, she stepped out from the shadows.
Both Jessie and Jocco saw Flame at the same time. Though they didn’t know it, there was only a large boulder between them. Jocco swung his rifle round and sighted on the long legged woman moving cautiously towards Pam. The cross-hairs of the night-scope centered on the side of her head. It would be a long shot, but a triple-burst should do it.
Then he heard Jessie whistle from the far side of the rock. Shocked by the nearness, he retreated back into the darkened slit. The sound of Jessie’s approaching feet became louder. Then a shadow blocked the opening of his lair. Like a creature of the night, Jocco crouched, ready to spring. Jessie’s form was silhouetted in the moonlight. The youth raised his left hand and whistled again. A distant response came from the far side of the glade. Jessie was about to move on when Jocco struck. Bounding out of his hole, he slammed the butt of his rifle into the back of the boy’s head. Even as Jessie was collapsing, Jocco was hauling him back into his den.
Pam was wasted. Whatever Jocco had given her had really done the trick! The pain was gone, along with the fear and the worry. The fact that she was still bleeding to death struck her as kind of 'funny'. Like the little girl in Lewis Carrol’s classic, Pam the Bitch was lost in Wonderland and she didn’t give a shit.
“One pill makes you taller,
and one pill makes you small.
And the ones that Mother gives you,
don’t do anything at all.
Go ask Alice,
when she’s ten feet tall.”
Inside her head the old song sounded great! With the Jefferson Airplane pumping out the background, she and Grace Slick were both wailing away at the mike. Barely breathing, Pam the Bitch rocked on silently towards eternity. What snapped her back to reality was the barrel of Flame’s riotgun being shoved rudely into her open mouth.
“Wha-ta-fawk?!”
“Easy does it, Blondie!”, Flame ordered. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
Pam tried to focus on the person standing over her. It seemed to take her a long time to recognize Flame, for it was a long way back from Wonderland, and the fucking White Rabbit had taken a powder! Climbing out of the deep well of her mind she realized there was something she had to do. Jocco had ordered it. ‘Off with her head!’ the Red Queen screamed. The queen wore Jocco’s handsome sneer. Like the puppet she had become, Pam jerked her hand up from her side. In it was the silver-plated .38.
Flame, seeing the flash in the moonlight, leaned forward --- hard. The perforated barrel of the Defender snapped Pam’s head back against the pine tree, breaking off two teeth in the process. The blonde’s eyes rolled back white as she slipped to one side, the unused revolver still clutched in her hand.
Up on the ridge, Jocco chose that exact moment to open fire. Soft-nosed slugs worked their way down the pine, across Pam’s unconscious body and into the needles carpeting the base of the tree. On full rock n’ roll, Jocco had emptied half his clip before he saw that his red-head target was no longer there.
Now sheltered behind the large tree, Flame let go two blasts from the Defender, neither of which came anywhere near reaching the distant ridge. Several more slugs from Jocco’s M-16 tore at the gnarled trunk.
“Christ!”, she swore, seeing the muzzle flashes and knowing they were too far away for the riotgun. Then she spotted the .38 still in Pam’s hand. Making a grab for it brought on another hail of bullets from Jocco, but she regained the relative safety of the tree clutching the chrome plated weapon. Looking down at it, she smiled. Blade had once owned a gun just like it, but the asshole had traded it for a kilo of grass. ‘Why die when you can get high?’ he used to say. Guns had never been Blade’s bag anyway. Flame however, just loved them. Though it only had a two inch barrel, Pam’s piece was a Ruger SP101, chambered for the heavier high velocity loads. It would kick like a bastard but it would get there. She snapped open the cylinder and her smile widened. Six fresh rounds.
Laying down, she sighted on the ridge. “Eat shit and die, mother-fucker!” A split second after the next muzzle-flash from the M-16, she squeezed off a round.
Josh was running frantically through the trees. He’d almost made it to the far end of the clearing when the shooting started. Now, from a rocky outcropping, he stopped long enough to look down on the moonlit glade. Flame was crouching behind the large pine. The slumped over body of the blonde lay at her feet. The distinctive sound of a revolver boomed once. From high on the ridge to the right the chatter of an M-16 answered. The muzzle flashes were coming from the rocks his son had gone to check out.
“Jessie!”, he hissed, instinctively raising his Browning, then lowering it. The ridge was in the shadows and over a hundred and fifty yards away. Even if he could see Jocco, he’d never hit him from here. Josh needed to get a hell of a lot closer --- and that suited him just fine. Silently he slipped away into the shadows.
Despite the cool, night breeze, Jocco was sweating. He’d used up his first magazine and was halfway through his second. When that was gone he’d only have his Colt Double Eagle. Though the .45 was a powerful weapon, it only held eight rounds and he didn’t have a spare clip. Cursing under his breath, he switched the M-16 to single shot, knelt down and waited for either Williams or the red-headed bitch to show themselves.
Behind him Jessie began to moan. Whirling around, he moved towards the semi-conscious youth. As he stood up, the wine from Flame’s second slug swished by his ear to ricochet off the granite wall. Rockchips flew and Jocco dove to his knees, tearing both pants and flesh in the process.
“Jesus-Fucking-Christ!”, he hissed. Still snarling, he grabbed Jessie by the scruff of his neck and hauled him towards the edge of the rocks. The ledge fell away at their feet. Flame, unseen behind her tree, was over fifty yards away.
Jocco leaned the M-16 against the rock wall, drew his Colt and pressed it into Jessie’s cheek. “Call out to them, kid! Let your papa and that red headed cunt know you’re still alive!”
Jessie, blood running down the back of his head, squeezed his eyes tight and willed the dizziness away. Despite his efforts, his knees buckled and Jocco had to shove him against the large boulder to hold him up.
“Don’t wimp out on me now, kid! Stand up like a man!”
Jessie stiffened. The last thing in the world he wanted was to show this bag of shit any sign of weakness.
“That’s better,” Jocco crooned in his ear, using Jessie’s body as a shield. “The only pussy round here is down there under that tree. Who knows? When this is all over, I might let you take your pick, but for now, sing out to your dear daddy. I want him to know his baby boy is up here with his Uncle Jocco.”
“Tell hi
m yourself, shit-for-brains! He’ll be here any minute!”
“Oh, I know he’s coming, kid. I’m counting on it!”
Jessie snorted, mockery joining the defiance in his blue eyes. “You think my father’s going to walk up and hand you his guns just because you’re holding me hostage? Christ, man, you’re dumber than I thought.”
“If he wants you to live he will!”, Jocco growled.
This time Jessie actually chuckled, drops of blood flying as he shook his head. “Not a chance, asswipe. My father loves me, but he’s a very practical man. He knows you’ll kill me right after you shoot him, so he won’t come out. But you can be damned sure he’ll get his revenge. You see, he’s also a very patient man.”
While Jocco was digesting all this, Jessie lashed out with his foot; not at Jocco, but at the M-16. His hiking boot caught the weapon under the trigger guard and sent it sailing out into space. When it hit the bottom it discharged once and lay there silent and broken.
“You little shit!”, Jocco screamed, yanking Jessie back by the hair and cocking the Golden Eagle.
“Go ahead, you gutless wonder!”, Jessie hissed. “Shoot! Then my father will really have a reason to track you down! You remember Rambo don’t you? Called himself Scar? Well, we spent the last year chasing that one-eyed bastard. Tracked him all across a dead continent! At times the rest of us wanted to give up, but not my old man! And do you want to know why he wouldn’t quit? Because Scar killed his nephew. Now just think about how much more determined he’ll be if you kill his son. Hell", Jessie smirked, "You're already a dead man!”
Jocco was taken back. The kid’s words had struck a nerve, a big mother-fucking nerve! He remembered how Scar had been haunted by the farmers chasing him. At the time he’d thought it a quaint little tale --- now it seemed more like a fucking nightmare! Shit! All his grand plans were suddenly going down the toilet! How had it all gone so fucking wrong?!
